In the electrical connector arts the use of rigid and flexible materials for use in the same connector is old in the art. Such uses, however, were generally in the form of washers, O-rings or physical mating through glues, force fits or threading of flexible to rigid material. The purpose in such a combination is generally to provide environmental sealing or strain relief or to allow for replacement or insertion of contacts. U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,759 "Micro-Miniature Circular High Voltage Connector" issued May 23, 1978 to Hermann, Jr., and U.S. Pat. No. 3,838,382 "Retention System For Electrical Contacts" issued Sept. 24, 1974 to Sugar disclose such uses.
Since the use of rigid and flexible components for contact housings is great, it is desirable to have a contact housing in which the rigid and flexible material are integrally molded so as to become a unitary piece. One patent wherein relatively hard and relatively soft resilient material are used together for insulator bodies is found in British Patent Specification No. 968,707 "Multi-Hardness Resilient Connector Insulator" published Sept. 2, 1964. The insulator bodies were designed to be used in a rigid connector shell.
It is an object of the present invention to produce a connector housing wherein one end is of a rigid material and not merely relatively inflexible and the other end is of a flexible material thereby providing environmental sealing and restraining one end while providing a physically secure base at the remaining end.
It is a further object to have a connector housing wherein the interface between the two materials is relatively smooth and does not separate when pressure is exerted thereon.
It is another object of this invention to provide a connector housing having one section of rigid material secured at one end thereof to a section of flexible material which will accommodate and sealingly engage different wire sizes without the need to exert external pressure by use of rigid connector shell or other means.
In addition it is an object of this invention to provide a connector housing having a second section of flexible material secured to the other end of the rigid material to provide a flexible resilient sealing member for environmentally sealing the interface when the connector housing is mated with a complimentary housing member.
In addition it is an object of this invention to provide a mold for making the connector housings and a cost effective method for making same.